


Puebla

by Toinette93



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: 1981, Gen, Mexico, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Shoes, Some Swearing, angry!Queen, concert fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-02 22:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21168998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toinette93/pseuds/Toinette93
Summary: Who on earth throws shoes at John Deacon ?---Or : I read about a pretty rowdy concert Queen had in Puebla Mexico in 1981, and I had to write a fic about it. That's about it, really.Changed the title because I got the City Name wrong. Sorry.





	Puebla

Puebla

October 17, 1981

Freddie had initially been mostly annoyed when they had been told on the day on the show that they would not be playing in Mexico city, which had been the initial plan but in Puebla. When he had seen the venue, almost falling apart, and obviously unsafe, he had gotten proper pissed, and had not been the only one. Roger had broken drums sticks, and if stares could kill, the glares that Brian and John had given the organizers would have ridden them with bullets. They were not going to refuse playing, but right now, on stage, Freddie thought that maybe they should have. The whole audience seemed angry, and shoes were being constantly thrown at them. He did not quite know what to make of that. He kept on singing and talking to the audience, getting more frustrated by the minute. He was pretty sure he had seen some tiers collapse, and he sure hoped the stage was not going to. He had yelled at the audience about the shoes after playing Now I’m Here, but it did not stop the flow. What the fuck had they done to those people, Freddie thought as he listened to Roger doing his drum solo on Keep Yourself Alive . Well, at least the music was good. Seemed like they always were pretty good when they were pissed.

In the next song, Brian broke a string. Freddie could see the annoyance on his face but he managed to keep on going and got his spare. Freddie was pretty sure the audience would not be able to tell the difference, but he knew their guitar player would be very irked by it. He himself was still the professional but he was not going to cry for an audience that was throwing shoes at them. After Dragon Attack, Freddie signalled they would drop a song from the set to make it shorter. The others agreed. He’d had enough. He did not like ducking shoes. As they were reaching the end of their sets, a boot hit John straight on the head. The bass player missed a few notes and Freddie looked at him in worry, but he was soon back on track. That was not acceptable for fuck sake. As they reached the end of We Are the Champions, they quickly made their way off the stage, Freddie having first insulted their shitty audience: “Thank you for the shoes! Adios amigos, you motherfuckers! You bunch of tacos, goodbye”. He had no idea if they had understood anything he had told them, but at that point he did not give even half a fuck. The venue had been shitty, the organization awful, and the audience aggressive. He was going to discuss with his bandmate about cancelling the show that they were supposed to do there the next day. But right now, he was just looking forward for time off. He would party with some friends in the hotel, since going out in town was apparently dangerous. So far Mexico was not his favourite part of the world.

Roger had pounded his drums with conviction and anger, and he thought he had served a pretty damn good show, but hell, the audience had been awful, and the technical problems had kept piling up. They had even thrown a shoe at Deacy. Who would want to hit John Deacon, really? Bunch of bastards. The set had been a pretty tiring one, so somehow he had not found the energy to break his drum kit at the end, but the will had been there. He just wanted to get back to the hotel, get shit faced, maybe hook up with some girl, but it had turned out that even that was not possible. The organizers had told them something about getting people out of the stadium being difficult, and that it would be dangerous to leave right now, and now they were being marshalled backstage. They were pushed in a very small room with no windows, that was even worst than were they had gotten dressed. And they had no idea where their crew had vanished to. They had not been in such a bad dressing room since their college tour days. Brian yelled something about being at least left the fuck alone to change, and soon they were only the four of them there, for which Roger was grateful. Roger also heard the guitar player ask for something, and a little bit later, when they were all done changing, except Freddie who had apparently misplaced his t-shirt, the door opened again and someone gave them some water, some food and a first-aid kit. Oh, yes, Roger thought, the boot. He should make sure John was ok. As he turned around to see his bandmate, he saw him sat on a chair, trembling slightly.

“Deacs, are you all right?”

The bass player did not answer. Roger got worried.

“Freddie, Brian” he said “I think something is wrong with John”, he said, and he got closer, to look for injury on John’s head.

The other two reacted immediately. Freddie stopped looking for his shirt and walked to his bandmate “John, darling, what is wrong, are you okay?”, he said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. Brian stopped trying to open the first-aid kit and brought it towards John, a look of worry etched on his face, holding his right hand, from where a small trickle of blood was falling in his left hand.

The bass player was not answering, his breathing was getting hitched and Freddie could feel him trembling a bit. Roger found the boot impact on John’s forehead, it was mostly dirty, and when he finished cleaning the dirt away, it turned out there was nothing under there. That was not where John’s trembling was coming from, then. Well that made sense, it had not looked like such an impact in the first place.

Brian saw that there was no injury on John, and looked around the room. Then he remembered the time they had been stuck in an elevator when Bohemian Rhapsody had hit number one. Of course, that was it, the room. It was so tiny. He kneeled down in front of John and asked, in his softest voice:

“John, is it the room? Is it too small?”

The bass player nodded. It was. He felt like the walls were getting closer and closer, he would get crushed and his three bandmate crowding him were also getting too much. He had trouble breathing, and felt hot although it was probably not that warm at all.

“Ok, John, we’ll give you some space all right? Well, as much as possible in this room anyway.”

John seemed hesitant. He needed the space, but some physical contact at least grounded him, he did not want to be completely alone.

“Would you rather one of us stayed there?”

John nodded again. He was grateful right now for his friend’s quick understanding and empathy. Brian could be incredibly annoying, but he could not deny he had quite the big heart.

“Freddie?”

“Mmmm” Freddie would be the best at calming him down. His mere existence always lowered down his level of anxiety somehow.

Brian, exchanged a look with Freddie, and the singer took his place next to John. He started to get John to breath with him, softly talking to him, calming him down. It was working, but it would take some time.

The guitar player got up, and walked to the door, followed by Roger. He got to the door, opened it, and was met by the face of a security guard. Jesus, it almost felt like prison. Roger was pretty mad, and was grateful for Brian’s self-control, as he asked to get out. The guard answered something about it not being safe yet, but soon. Brian manage to get him to get his boss on radio. The man would be there in a little bit. Roger was surprised at the rush of affection he felt for his tall bandmate, able to keep his cool - well, more or less – while he would just have exploded had he opened his mouth, which would only have overwhelmed John more. They had all drifted apart a bit lately, even if they still got along pretty well as bandmates, not spending as much time together outside of work as they used to. He had sort of figured that they were mainly good working partners now, not so much close friends anymore, but the amount of anger he felt on John’s behalf right now, made him think it probably never would be quite only that.

He walked back inside with Brian, and they sat down on the ground, away from John and Freddie. The room was so small that it was not far at all, and they could see that John had stopped trembling, although he was still visibly tense. He would probably only calm down when they were out of this too tight room. Shit, he thought, they should have been drunk by now. Brian and him were just sitting in silence, trying to make as little noise as possible to not overwhelm their bandmate – their friend, Roger corrected in his mind – any more than he already was.

“Ouch” said Brian, who had shifted position, and hit his scratched hand on the wall.

Roger turned to the guitar player, and noticed the blood.

“Snapped string did that to you?” he asked

“Yeah, I think so. It’s nothing though, I’ll just put a plaster on it.” he said, and he grabbed the first-aid kit that had been forgotten on the floor.

“It’s on your right hand, won’t be easy to do, let me do it” said Roger, who wanted to show his gratefulness to Brian somehow

“All right”.

Roger put some water on his handkerchief and lightly cleaned off the blood, careful not to hurt his friend. He then dabbed some antiseptic on the cut, very thoroughly. It was not a very big cut, and soon Brian had a small plaster on his hand.

“Thanks. You’re good at this.”

Roger gave him a cheeky grin. “Don’t get used to it.”

They did not have to wait for very long after that, but it took quite a while before they got out of the arena altogether, and they were coaxed into signing a paper promising they would play again the next day to avoid riots. They put some conditions, and they were not looking forward to it, but at that point they were too exhausted to really want to argue, and besides, they were still professionals. John had felt better as soon as they had gotten out of the room, but he was really tired, and Freddie accompanied him to his room and made sure he was ok to be alone before going to his own bed.

Thankfully, the next day’s shows was nothing like that one, and they enjoyed themselves quite a bit, playing as beautifully as ever to a much friendlier audience.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey people, hope you liked it ! It really was a silly plot bunny thing.  
So most of the details here come from the queenlive.ca website, that you should check out, btw. - including broken tiers, shoes getting thrown at John, Brian's broken string, Freddie's taco comment, the claustrophobic room, and the contract signing to promise a second show. There is a picture also of Brian with his spare and some blood on his hand, so I kinda made the connexion with the guitar string. This looks like it really was a tough night.  
I really don't want to particularly hate on the audience, they apparently had some pretty good reasons to be pissed although, again, who throws shoes at John Deacon. The whole story about camera batteries and baton-happy cops is on the queenlive.ca website.  
Comments are really appreciated, do tell me if I messed up something, as I am not a native speaker, and also know nothing about Mexico.  
Cheers


End file.
